On 9th November I held a quiz night to go towards my fundraising with over 60 people in attendance. This event was also coincidently exactly one year after I found out that I had been selected to attend the Jamboree. I was also selling Christmas decorations of which some where handmade by me and family.

This event raised over £300 for me which completed my grand total of fundraising that is £3950. It was amazing that I managed to complete this in exactly one year and I would like to thank everyone who contributed to my fundraising .

On the weekend on the 1st September the rest of the Unit and I went to a campsite in South London by the station Sydenham Hill. We were lucky enough to be given a tour of the Canadian High-commission on the day we arrived (Friday).

On the Saturday we started of the day with a guided tour of the Houses of Parliament which helped us to learn the history of the building and what happened there and also we got to go into the House of Commons room and the House of Lords. Then after our lunch in Parliament Square we headed over to the US embassy next to the Thames where we got to do a Q&A with a speaker from the US about questions relating to the cities, poltics and just general America questions. He was very helpful and gave us all we needed to know from what we asked him.

On the Sunday we were split into our patrols to go around London doing a Monopoly run where we had to visit lots of locations and answer question on our sheet. We then got given a budget so we could go and get ourselves some dinner from wherever we wanted so my patrol went to a street market and got some pizza.

Overall it was a very fun weekend where we got to know each other. better and learn about what it will be like from past participants.

On the 9th June I hosted a Jazz concert with Patrick , another scout from Unit 62, to raise funds for the jamboree. The evening was a complete sellout with over 160 attending. It raised us an incredible £900 each!!!

The Jazz and Swing band the MillsTones played for us and put on a superb show which seemed to be thoroughly enjoyed by all people in attendance.

On the weekend of the 13th May, I went with some other scouts from Unit 62 to volunteer at the VW car festival called Dubs in the Park. It was held at Easthampsted Park and had a huge turn out.

We arrived to help at about 8:30am and for the rest of the morning we were helping either park the visiting cars or directing the VW’s to their spots. Later in the day, we were moved to park more cars in a field by the side of the road up to the house as the event was so busy.

I really enjoyed the day and we got to know each other some more, as well as having fun together.

Over Easter weekend the DW canoe race takes place where hundreds of competitors paddle 125 miles and go through 77 portages. The Wokingham scouts who are going on Jamboree, including me, ran the food and some of the Marshalling of the Reading base.

Due to the amount of rain on the Friday the river became to dangerous for the canoeists and the marshals were forced to stop the race at Reading. Although very disappointing for the paddlers it meant customers so by 11pm we had taken over £1000 on refreshments. It was great fun to spend the day with the other participants and we got to know each other more.

My Sell A Date fundraiser where I sold all 365 dates of the year for £1 went very well. At the last Scout meeting of the term the draw took place, with everyone waiting in anticipation to see if they had won the £50 voucher of their choice.

The date picked out was the 2nd of February and the winner was Julie Barron. Thank you to everyone who supported me by buying a date.

Yesterday my unit met up at Bracknell to look at Personal goals. As part of the preparation for the WSJ we have to select 6 goals, 5 being personal and 1 as the unit.

I selected to be more positive, learn to say hello in different languages, meet new people in my local area, I am walking the Thames Path as a physical goal and I am trying to get to like people who before I would normally not like as much and for the Unit I put that we should learn American Football so we can play other Units when we get there.

The other activity for the day was to select a unit name. It is tradition that each unit creates their own identity and sub brand to make it stand out from the other units. Unit 62 have had lots of ideas over the last few weeks about names and there were a couple of favourites but we decided: – Berkshire Blue Bears.

The Bear relates to the UK national mascot for the jamboree and the Blue links to our unit colour scheme. The 3 “B’s” also link to: Biscuits from Huntley and Palmer, Beer from Courage and Bulbs from Sutton Seeds.